My Summer with MIT’s Tumblr

September 25, 2023

By Emma Briggs, Social Media Intern 

Ten or 15 years ago, Tumblr was a creative social platform known for fostering innovative energy with billions of website views per month. In the last decade, the blogging platform has lost many of its users to Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and most recently, TikTok. The younger millennials who mostly populated the website in 2015 are now entering their 30’s, and the driving force of social media consumption has shifted to Gen Z users who prefer short form video content found on TikTok. The thing is, though, Tumblr is still here. The number of page views have dropped from the billions in the early 2010s down to millions in recent years, but the platform is still active, and more alive than you may think.

When I joined MIT’s social media team as an intern in May 2023, one of my responsibilities included reviving the official MIT Tumblr account. I felt it was an appropriate task for an intern—I had creative agency and real responsibility, but on a platform with fewer followers and lower stakes. Also, I had heard whispers that Tumblr was on its way to making a quiet comeback as users became frustrated with other platforms, which excited me about this project, and fueled my motivation to be at the forefront of that change.

I had a lot of expectations when starting this experience and many ideas for the Tumblr account. I figured that posting at a certain time might help to grow the audience and the reach. I also thought videos would perform better than pictures, and that growing the followers and the average number of notes (a note is a like, comment, or share on Tumblr) per post would be easy and relatively straight forward. I found that some of the things that I had anticipated were true, but many were not. For instance, I was surprised to find that photos often performed just as well as videos. On the other hand, I discovered posting regularly and frequently did in fact increase engagement. We experienced the highest interactions during the times I posted consistently.

I experimented with posting three to five times a week, at different hours of the day varying from 11 a.m., 4 p.m., to 6 p.m. I began posting mostly videos and focused on content that revolved around math, engineering, or astrophysics. Those subjects were positively received. That being said, occasional posts including MIT fun facts or history also did well.

I found the most challenging component of managing an account on a platform with low engagement is dealing with a slim margin between a post performing well versus badly. If the average post gets five to seven notes, 10 to 15 notes is a pretty significant increase percentage wise, (but really only five or ten more interactions than an average post would receive). This variation in the numbers is more than typical in posts that get hundreds or thousands of interactions. So, while an account is in its fledgling stage, especially on a platform with pretty low engagement, it can be complicated to figure out what tactics are going to be successful long term versus something that happened to work well once. 

This was my first encounter managing a brand account. I came into this experience with many ideas, and quickly figured out that I was going to have to reorient my understanding of social media and content to fit with the MIT brand. But I also discovered that trial and error (emphasis on the error!) is often the best way to figure out what works. I’ve been lucky to have a supervisor that understands this and has reassured me that the way you learn is by experimenting and learning along the way. I’m looking forward to seeing how Tumblr continues to grow and change in the social media landscape and am grateful to have played a part in it!